Baby Gender Reveal Party

When we first found out we were pregnant, we decided to only share the news with four people: my mother, sister, best friend, and my hubby’s mother. That was it. The three women on my side had been supporting me throughout the fertility treatment we did. They were by my side through the entire process, which was several months, calling, sending me lots of encouraging messages, visiting me, and offering their support. When you do a treatment, things are scheduled ahead of time, such as the day you will go to the doctor for a pregnancy test. So, all three of them were aware of the day we would find out the news. The day we received the confirmation call from the doctor, I notified all three of them and we also called my hubby’s mother. As hard as it was, I managed to keep the news from the rest of my family and friends until after the first trimester. It was no easy, particularly because I am close to my family and have some good friends I stay in touch with often. If asked, I would tell people we were starting to try to get pregnant. Since pregnancy can be a very personal and sensitive subject, people would offer encouraging words, but not ask too many further questions. We shared the news with the rest of my extended family and other friends after the fifth month. I wanted to notify my grandmother and aunts before I shared it with others, but they live out of town and I wasn’t able to visit them until I was already five months pregnant. I really didn’t start to show a baby bump until the fifth month. It was getting challenging to dress for public events when the bump started to show, so I made a special trip to visit my grandmother and aunts to share the news. The week I returned from that trip, we shared the news with friends, on my blog, and social media.

The first family members to find out were my siblings, in-laws, and nieces/nephews. My husband and I took a trip out of the country the week after the first trimester of pregnancy. We were gone for more than a week. I wanted to share the good news and the baby’s gender with my siblings, mom, & nieces/nephews before we left. We invited them to the house for an end of the summer barbecue for the weekend before we left. Since we already knew the baby was a girl, we were also going to share that news with them. I ordered a special cake and bought some decorations to celebrate the occasion. My sister was the only person which knew the baby was a girl. I didn’t even tell my mom. Both my sister and mom knew the real purpose of the barbecue. My mom was out of town that week and at the last minute was not able to attend the event because she was not feeling well. I revealed the gender of the baby to her a few weeks later, at the same time I notified my grandmother (more on that in a separate post).

The weather was sunny and beautiful on the day of the barbecue! My family came over and we enjoyed the afternoon in our yard. My hubby and I had decided to share the news after we all finished eating. We were going to go around the table and each person would share what they enjoyed about their summer. And, we would be last and share that we were happy to have gotten pregnant over the summer! After we finished eating, we started the conversation and my hubby shared the news. I could see my sister-in-law looking at my brother kind of saying, something is up! My hubby ended the conversation by saying we were adding a new member to our family! Then I immediately said, we are pregnant! It was such a nice way to share the surprise with our family! We all hugged and the women shed a few tears of joy! Then, I said, but there’s more news, we know the baby’s gender and now we will share that with you.

I went inside the house and grabbed a box I had hidden in the pantry which contained the decorations and some other baby gender reveal games. First, we asked each one to choose if they were team girl or boy by selecting blue or pink sticker. Then, they also voted on a dry erase board for the gender they guessed. While they were doing that I started placing some little rubber ducks in multiple colors on the table as decorations. The votes were split between boy and girl.

Next, I went inside to the library to get the cake box I had hidden so no one would see it. My sister helped me get the bag of balloons which was hidden in my bedroom closet. Once we were both back in the yard, I took out the boy or girl plates and a special baby cake cutting knife. I had purchased pink forks and napkins, but waited until later to take those out. I told my nieces they would get to cut the cake and the filling would reveal the gender of the baby, blue for boy and pink for girl. The cake would be cut at the same time as my nephews would open the bag of balloons and see if they were pink or blue balloons. This way, all the kids got to participate. We did a count down and as the cake was being cut, my nephews opened the bag of balloons and everyone found out we are having a girl at the same time! It was very exciting! I am close to my younger brother, and he has two teenage girls and a baby boy which turns two soon. We haven’t had a baby girl in our family in thirteen years! Everyone was thrilled! The last game was a Baby Guessing Game where each person wrote down a name they suggested, the date and time the baby would be born, the birth weight, and the hair color. It was fun to see the guesses. I will save the sheet in the baby’s scrap book. After it was revealed that we are having a girl, I gave each family one of the pregnancy announcement cards which I made, some chocolates with a bow, and See’s lollipop with an “It’s a Girl” pink sticker!

I took a few pictures that evening, to remember the occasion and to share with you. I am trying to be present in the moment and have noticed that when I am taking pictures, it takes away from my enjoyment of the party and time with my family. I didn’t want to take away from such a special moment, so I limited the number of pictures I took. There were also lots of hugs and even dancing at the end, so I had limited time to take pictures. I was enjoying every precious moment so much, that I even forgot to ask someone to take a picture of my hubby and me that day. Below are pictures from that evening. I will write a separate post regarding how I made the personalized pregnancy announcement cards and about the decorations we used.

How did you notify your family that you or your partner were pregnant? Did you have a gender reveal party or how did you share the news of the gender?

Hugs,

Paola

PS – How we announced that we are expecting Baby Jiao Hernandez.